


Her Heart Did Whisper

by Who_Needs_Reality



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, jily - Fandom, marauders - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Holidays, Marauders, Severus Snape Bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9347102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Needs_Reality/pseuds/Who_Needs_Reality
Summary: “Oh look,” Ernesta says, beaming, “that must be your fella, I was wondering where he’d got to!”Lily blinks. “My…fella?”“Oh yes! Mary said you’d be bringing someone–I don’t let ladies stay here alone you know, it would be so improper!” She scuttles off, singing something about a pot of tea.Unsure whether to respond to the cheerful sexism or correct the mistake first, Lily turns around slowly, with a mounting sense of dread and.No.No.No.Because standing there in a jauntily rumpled peacoat and scarf, looking as though someone has just thrown him a marvelous surprise party, is James Potter.The grin spreads across his face slowly and all-consumingly, like a forest fire. “Fancy seeing you here, Evans.”{Lily reallyreallyhates James Potter. Too bad she ends up on holiday with him.}





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prongsno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prongsno/gifts).



> I wrote this work as part of the 2016 [Jily Secret Santa](http://fyeahjamesandlily.tumblr.com/post/155304292836/her-heart-did-whisper) gift exchange for [prongsno](http://prongsno.tumblr.com), on my now ironically accidentally deleted blog.

All Lily wants is a moment of bloody peace. It’s been a  _day_ – she spilt a (thankfully cooling) cup of tea down the front of her blouse during breakfast, she walked in on Petunia and Vernon doing something as horrifying as it was unspeakable, she got stuck next to a drunk bloke on the Tube who wanted to break down the results of the Manchester United game in loud and excruciating detail for three stops, she accidentally deleted her carefully curated four-year-old aesthetic blog on Tumblr (they really needed to something about that blasted button), she had hit what felt like a bleak and insurmountable bout of writer’s block on her dissertation, and Mary just texted to say she was running half an hour late….so just, please,  _peace_. It doesn’t seem like a tall order, but it must be because the universe has decided to throw a roadblock at her in the slick-haired pale-faced shape of her former best friend. She sees him at the same time he spots her, making hiding futile, though that doesn’t stop her from trying to slink as low in the leather seat as she possibly can, hoping vainly that her laptop obscures her from view.

It doesn’t work because, well, of  _course,_ it doesn’t. She’s just considering chucking her peppermint hot chocolate into her face so that she gets unrecognisably burned when she hears a soft: “Is this seat taken?”

“What do you want, Sev?”

To his credit, Severus looks like he’s going to try play it casual for all of three seconds before his thin lips curl petulantly. “I want to talk to you, Lils, we never see each other anymore!”

“You can see me now, can’t you?”

“Lils–”

She glowers, cutting him off. “We don’t see each other because I don’t  _want_ us to Sev! I’m  _trying_ to avoid you.”

He tugs at the end of his hair, a nervous gesture that would once have moved her to reach out and comfort him, but now just makes her want to go at his oil-slicked mop with a pair of scissors. “I thought you’d just been doing that to punish me. That you wanted me to make an effort to seek you out.”

Lily crosses her arms and straightens. “I’m avoiding you because I want to avoid you. As in, not see you anymore, not interact with you, not share oxygen with you, or do anything else with you, now or ever.”

“Lily,  _please_ ,” and she once thought this tone of voice plaintive and sweet but now just considers it grating and whining, “I miss you! I want to be friends again!”

She eyes him, and for a second feels a flutter of regret, a pang of longing for the little boy with whom she used to lie in fields and pick out shapes in clouds. Just for a second, though. “Are you still a Neo-Nazi?”

If it’s possible, Severus Snape’s face curdles so that he bears an even  _closer_ resemblance to spoilt milk. “Lily, I  _told_ you, it’s not  _like_ that. The Death Eatery is just an online community of open-minded individuals–”

“Blatant racism and misogyny are open-minded now? Oh please do continue.”

“It’s not  _misogyny_!”

“Of course! What would I know? I’m just a  _PMS-ing little harlot_  who needs to  _think with my head and not my v_ –”

“I’m sorry!” Snape has a desperate look in his eyes, wincing as she throws him that scalding reminder of his words to her last summer, “I didn’t mean that! I was just angry!”

“That wasn’t  _anger_ Sev, that was flat-out verbal abuse. When you’re angry you call someone a dickhead, or a wanker, or a bellend,” he opens his mouth as though to protest, but Lily’s having none of it “allow me to demonstrate: Get out of my face this minute, Severus Snape, you dickhead-wanker-bellend.”

Her voice is loud enough that people are looking now, and Snape crumbles under external pressure, as well she knew he would. 

“I’ll call you,” he promises as he turns to leave.

“I’ll kill you,” she answers flatly.

She heaves a sigh as he finally leaves, hating how knackered the exchange has left her. She knows trying to refocus on her work right after  _that_  will be futile, and she thinks she’s earned some sustenance by now. With any luck, Remus is still the barista on shift– he usually comps her a cup of tea or a cappuccino.

There is no such luck. Remus is not the barista on shift. 

“Well, hello Red!”

What Lily thinks is:  _the universe despises me_. What she says is: “Hello Sirius.” Her smile is tight, and she hopes, not inspiring of any further conversation. She has nothing really  _against_ Sirius per se, but where there’s smoke there’s fire, and where there’s Sirius there’s–-

“Oi, Prongs! Look who’s here!” 

When she scowls at him, incredulous, Sirius simply grins his wolfish grin. “Apologies Red, but loyalties are loyalties and he’d never forgive me if I let him miss you.”

“I hope you’ll forgive him when I  _castrate you_.”

“Alright, Evans?”

And  _there_ it is,  _there’s_ the voice that’s almost conditioned Lily, Pavlov-style, to search for the nearest heavy object to fling at people.Peace. It was all she wanted. Just a few blissful, uninterrupted, oh-so-wonderful moments of peace. What she gets instead is James Potter, freckled and beaming as he leans against the doorway to the kitchen, dressed not in the barista uniform that Sirius wears, but in dark jeans and a flannel open over a snugly-fitted white t-shirt. His glasses are perched crookedly as ever on the bridge of his nose, and he pulls that classic James Potter-ism of raking a hand through his unruly black curls so that they look freshly tousled and windswept. She kind of wants to sock him in the face.

“Shouldn’t you be in uniform Potter?” she asks, mostly to stop herself from doing just that.

He chuckles. “Like our men in uniform do we?”

Lily is tempted to lose control then and there. “You really are an insufferable  _pig_!”

James holds his hands up. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, sounding anything but that as Sirius snorts in the background. “I’m not in uniform because I don’t work here, Evans, just hang around.”

“Like a vagrant.”

Sirius doesn’t bother to smother his laughter, and she rounds on him. “Are you going to take my order or not? I already ought to have reported you to the manager.”

Sirius grins, amused. “There’s always next time.”

James is shaking his head, looking all affectionate in a way that just irritates Lily even more– everything about him does really. “You heard the lady, Padfoot, hop to it.”

Sirius gives a mock salute. “What can I get for you today?”

His tone is mocking, but Lily’s increasingly desperate need for a hot festive beverage prevails in this instance. “A large gingerbread latte please.”

“Coming right up. And may I just say, you have lovely manners.”

She sniffed. “I aim to lead by example.”

Sirius shakes his head, still grinning. She wonders that his face doesn’t ache, always beaming like that. “For here or to go?”

“To go.”

James has the gall to look concerned. “Are you sure, Evans? It’s chilly out there.”

“That’s what the hot drink’s for, Potter. Anyway, why are you still hovering?”

“Moth to a flame, Evans, moth to a flame.”

It’s probably a good thing that Sirius hasn’t produced her drink as yet because she has a sneaking suspicion it would have wound up decorating James’s pretty face at this point.

When Sirius does finally hand her the paper cup, she pays hastily and marches for the doorway. 

“See you round, Evans!” James calls after her.

She runs into Mary as she turns the corner next to the bookstore. “Lily!” Mary blinks. “Where are you going? I thought we were meeting at Broomsticks!”

“We were,” Lily says, grabbing Mary by the arm and tugging her along without breaking her stride, “forty-five minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know the Tube line was down for–”

Lily shakes her head, letting go of her friend’s arm when Mary is collected enough to keep up. “Bygones. In other news, we need to find a new café.”

“What, why? I like Broomsticks!”

“And so do all the horsemen of the apocalypse apparently.”

Mary hums. “Potter was there again?”

Lily nods grimly. “Black and Potter, the dynamic duo.” A pause. “And Severus.”

“Oh, bloody hell, what did he want?”

“The usual, a chance to whinge and whine and wheedle for my forgiveness.”

“Did you? Forgive him?”

Lily shakes her head darkly. “He’s still in touch with those internet thugs.”

“Gosh, that horrid Alt-Right Reddit page he joined a while back?”

“The very same. And even if he wasn’t…” she swallows, his insults from last summer replaying in her head for the umpteenth time. She shook her head. “I’m done with him.”

Mary rubs her arm comfortingly. “I can’t say I’m too sorry. But I wish you were feeling better.”

“As do I.” She groans. “It’s been a  _day_.”

“Oh, one of  _those_  days?”

“Those are the ones.” She reaches back to undo her ponytail, combing out the red hair and relishing the biting cool of the wind nipping at her finger as she does it. “I swear if Vernon and Tuney are still at it by the time I get home I’m done. I’m ferrying to France and never coming back, I’ll become a mime or something. Everyone will leave me alone then.”

Mary laughs. “Well if a getaway is what you want, I might have an easier option. That’s what I wanted to tell you about actually.”

“Yeah?”

She nods, eager. “My Aunt Ernesta–”

“The one with that dog?”

“The one with that dog. Well, she runs a B&B up in the Peak District and she called me all flustered yesterday because someone canceled their bookings for a week from now, which isn’t all that short notice, but it did mean she lost a week’s wages in peak season–ha!  _Peak_. Like Peak D–”

Lily laughed. “I get it. Point please.”

“Right, yes. Anyway, she has this room open a week from now and she calls me and tells me that she can offer a very generous discount to me if I come up and stay because it’s still better than no wage at all and whatnot, but see the thing is I  _can’t go_ a week from now, but I hated to disappoint Aunt Ernie, so I told her I could try to find someone else to take the bookings, if she would offer them the discount, and she said yes!”

It’s a testament to their friendship that Lily understands all of this because Mary spoke mostly in one breath. “How long did you say the bookings were for?”

“Eighteenth night to the twenty-first night.”

“Three days in the Peaks,” Lily muses, and the idea is sorely tempting. “It does sound lovely,” she concedes, “but Mary I’ve got so much to do on my dissertation and–”

“Nuh-uh!” Mary claps her hand over Lily’s mouth. “ _This_ is exactly why you need to go. She doesn’t even have Wifi or anything up there, just a big bookshelf and a stellar knowledge of the best hiking trails. It might even snow while you’re there, Aunt Ernest said the forecast showed it might– it’ll be wonderful, just a chance to depressurise and unwind, get away from it all.”

The last four words prove Lily’s undoing. A quiet week uninterrupted in the countryside… _Peace_.

“Alright,” Lily says, and already the excitement starts to mount, “I think I will.”

***

By the time Lily arrives at the little cottage that serves as Ernesta McDonald’s Bread & Breakfast, she’s already halfway into the holiday mindset. There’s a fine drizzle in the air that cloaks the Peaks in a whimsical mist, the sunset sky is tinted lilac, the chill in the air is just this side of festive rather than frigid, and there is honeysuckle growing up-and-down the cottage front. She hefts her bags from the back of the car and goes into the front of the house, only to be greeted by a small  _yip-yip-yip_  sound. 

Look, Lily would say she’s a dog person. She’s no expert on them by any stretch of the imagination, but she appreciates pooches in all their fluffy, huggable glory. She loves dogs, really she does. However, the small creature that is quite literally bouncing up-and-down (no, really, the thing is leaping a good three feet with each  _yip_ ) in front of her scarcely resembles a dog. It looks for all the world like one of those hairless cats, the ones that look like they’ve been turned inside out. It’s scrawny, with fur in scarce patches scrubbed across its skin. Not in a pathetic “the poor little thing’s been starved” kind of way either, no, more like it’s fought a lawnmower for fun. 

“Hello,” she says, bending to pet it tentatively, because, well she’s not a  _monster_. And the thing, however ugly, is still a dog.

“He likes you!”

Lily turns with a start to see a small, dumpy woman in a floral dress tottering into the room.

“Down, Wilfred. Here, boy!” 

The dog–presumably Wilfred– trots happily over to the elderly lady and proceeds to start licking at her moccasins with what appears to be a rather sharp tongue. Lily chides herself for expecting it to be forked.

“Now then, you must be Mary’s friend; I’m her Aunt Ernesta!” A trace of the Scottish lilt that Mary lost when she was little lingers in Aunt Ernesta’s voice, and it makes her sound all warm and matronly.

“Yes, I’m Lily Evans–It’s a pleasure to meet you!” 

Aunt Ernesta shakes her hand enthusiastically, and Lily is just about to ask about her room when she’s hit by a blast of cold air from the back, signaling the door has opened. 

“Oh look,” Ernesta says, beaming, “that must be your fella, I was wondering where he’d got to!”

Lily blinks. “My…fella?”

“Oh yes! Mary said you’d be bringing someone–I don’t let ladies stay here alone you know, it would be so improper!” She scuttles off, singing something about a pot of tea.

Unsure whether to respond to the cheerful sexism or correct the mistake first, Lily turns around slowly, with a mounting sense of dread and.

No.

No.

_No_.

Because standing there in a jauntily rumpled peacoat and scarf, looking as though someone has just thrown him a marvelous surprise party, is James Potter.

The grin spreads across his face slowly and all-consumingly, like a forest fire. “Fancy seeing you here, Evans.”

***

“It’s a coincidence,  _I swear_!” Mary sounds desperate, but also like she’s choking on laughter, which does little to help Lily’s mood.

“You told your Aunt I’d bring a bloke!  _Why would you do that?_ ”

“Sorry! Aunt Ernesta’s really old-fashioned like that, doesn’t believe in women traveling alone and all that. I told her that to stop her knickers from getting in a twist, that’s all, I didn’t think she’d actually remember!”

“How?  _How would she not remember_?” hisses Lily into the phone, “she made a reservation for two. Two! And now James bloody Potter’s here and she thinks he’s my boyfriend! Tell me you had nothing to do with this!”

“Of course I didn’t! I promise I had no idea he would be there. I’m really sorry Lils!”

Lily slides down the wall of the cottage, groaning. “Oh God, I swear, if the bastard’s stalking me…”

“I’m sure that’s not it,” Mary reassures her, “it’s just a little mix-up.” Lily catches a low voice in the background and Mary’s giggle.

“Ooh, is that the mystery boyfriend?” she asks, grinning in spite of herself.

“Oh, shut up,” but Lily can hear the blush in Mary’s voice. Mary has kept her current boyfriend a jealously guarded secret for reasons no one can fathom, but all that means is that Lily, Marlene, and Dorcas tease her even more mercilessly than they usually would. “I have to go now!”

Lily groans. “Fine, go, have fun, abandon me to Potter and your archaic Aunt.”

“Play nice, Lily!”

There’s a click as Mary hangs up and for a moment, Lily just stares at the phone in despondent silence. She feels rather than hears Potter appear behind her.

“What are you doing here?” she snaps.

“I have a scientific interest in exactly how long it will take for a human body to freeze into a hunk of ice. You know, Captain America style, preserved.”

“It’s not that cold out here! And anyway, you know full well that’s not what I meant.” She glances up to glower at him, he’s leaning against the doorway with his glasses perched crookedly on his nose, because really the bloody things never stay on straight, and when Lily’s not actively wanting to punch him, she’s always tempted to readjust them.

He shrugs, and bloody hell even  _that_ seems to smack of that infuriating James Potter smugness. “This is as happy an accident for you as it is for me, Evans. Kismet and all.”

Her eyes narrow. “Oh really? You just  _happened_ to show up at the very same very obscure B&B at the very same time I did?”

He grins, and Lily can see that however impossible the situation is, he’s genuinely as surprised as she is. “Like I said–kismet.”

Abruptly, Lily stands, dragging a hand over her face. “Well, come on,” she said, “we better go fix this.”

James sighs, expression sobering a little. “Look, Evans, we can’t tell her, she’ll definitely kick you out then.”

“Me? Why would  _I_ get kicked out?–I got here first!” Yes, she knows she sounds petulant, no, she does not  _care_.

He actually looks sheepish. “Look I’d leave immediately if I thought it would help but…” he rubs the back of his neck in a gesture that seems both very  _un_ -James Potter and completely natural all at once, “I’m pretty sure Miss McDonald’s, ah, rule only extends to….girls.” Seeing Lily is incensed, he holds up both hands placatingly. “It’s not like I agree with her or anything, just, she didn’t say anything to me about having to bring a girlfriend when I booked.”

Lily glowers at him, trying her best to somehow tie an old woman’s deeply internalized misogyny back to him. “What are you suggesting Potter?”

He has the  _gall_ to look amused, the  _prick_. “You’re a smart girl Evans, I think you know.”

***

“I remember my first Christmas with Rupert,” Ernesta says, wiping at her eyes, “there was snow…we used to take walks in the wood by moonlight.” She waggles her eyebrows. “It was when he proposed you know.”

James chokes on his tea and Lily’s already forced smile warps slightly. “I don’t think we’re quite there yet, Aunt Ernesta.”

“You never know dear,” the lady answers, pouring more tea from a truly ghastly pink porcelain teapot, “Christmas can make one do marvelous things!”

Lily forces herself to swallow back some acerbic remarks about how one is more likely to be murdered by a family member on Christmas than on any other day of the year, but her fingernails cut crescents into her palm from how tightly her fists curl.

James, apparently sensing that his pseudo-girlfriend is about three seconds from right-hooking an OAP in the face, stretches his arms out with an obscenely long, loud yawn. “Thank you for the lovely tea,” he says, all charm, “but I’m knackered. Would you mind showing us the room?”

“Of course dear!” The old lady busies herself with clearing away plates and cups whilst James and Lily hoist themselves up from the sofa and pick up their bags.

Their room is at the end of the rickety upstairs corridor, and Lily doesn’t hear any of Aunt Ernesta’s cheerful explanations about what’s where, because her attention becomes solely focused on one detail she forgot all about. 

There’s only one bed. It’s a double bed, but not a large one, but it takes up the bulk of the floor space. In fact the longer Lily looks at it the more space it seems to occupy. She mumbles a goodnight to Ernesta, before turning slowly, measuredly, to look at James.

She expects him to be looking either oblivious or suggestive, but to her surprise, he seems to be  _blushing_. 

“Well,” she says.

“Well.”

“One bed.”

“Two of us.” There’s a pause before James speaks again. “I could take the floor?”

Lily scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

James arches an eyebrow. “I’m being polite!”

“You’re being patriarchal!”

He splutters. “ _Ernesta_ was being patriarchal, that’s why we’re here!”

She scowls. “Are you prepared to behave like an adult?”

He says nothing but eyes her warily.

“We might as well carry off this charade properly. There’s room in the bed for both of us, so if you don’t try anything funny–”

Potter has the  _nerve_ to look offended. “I would never do that!”

“Then I suppose we can just. Share.”

“Share?”

She crosses her arms across her chest and nods tightly, before scooping her nightclothes from the bag and sweeping into the bathroom to change. When she re-emerges, James has changed into flannel pajama bottoms and a Puddlemere United football t-shirt. She has no idea why, but she gets the sense that he’s only wearing a shirt for her benefit, but sticking with that line of thoughts seems superbly unhelpful.

They climb into the bed and lie on their backs, covers pulled to their chins.

Lily stares at the ceiling. “Goodnight, Potter.” She can feel his heat across the bed.

The grin in his voice is almost audible. “Sleep well Evans.”

***

Lily wakes up, to her horror, with her hair splayed across James Potter’s chest, and for one terrifying moment, several awful scenarios play through her head before she reorients herself and remembers her situation. The sleeping James, fortunately, seems blissfully oblivious to his status as an animated pillow, still dead to the world with his arms folded behind his head. She extricates herself from him and the sheets carefully, swearing as she rolls out of bed only to be greeted by the bitingly cold air of the bedroom. As per habit, she checks her phone, charging by her bedside. There are about seventy unread messages.

_lily im sorry_

_plz lily where r u_

_call me_

_we need to talk_

_i miss u!!_

_LILY_

_ur being unreasonable_

“You bloody git,” she hisses.

“I’m sure you’re right,” James says, groggy and sleep-slow, “but what  _exactly_ did I do this time?”

Lily shuffles round to glare at him and is temporarily taken aback by his appearance. He looks rumpled, in the real way, not his usual deliberately styled manner, a little disoriented without his glasses.“Believe it or not, Potter, the world does not revolve around you!”

James sits up, his ridiculous hair stuck out in ridiculous directions. “Really? But I have such natural gravity.”

“So do black holes.”

He chuckles. “Touché.”

She huffs a sigh, annoyed at his good humour and the fact that the skin at his collar is flushing… _not_ prettily. Interestingly. “It’s Severus.”

As she suspected, his face clouds instantly and his eyes go hard. “Is he bothering you?”

“Leave it, James, this is nothing to do with your vendetta against Severus.”

“Yeah? And what about my vendetta against slimy racists with terrible hair?”

“Just…leave it.” Lily hates this, hates the reminder that there’s no feasible reason for her to stick up for her former best friend against his long-time tormentor anymore. Hates the fact she feels guilty for complaining about Severus to James when he more than deserves it.

James looks sidelong at her, as though he’d considering saying something more in the subject, but apparently thinks the better of it. “Let’s go for a walk Evans.”

“What?”

“A walk. We take in the brisk peaks air and all that. I hear it’s the done thing.”

Lily bristles. “And what makes you think  _we_  would be doing anything? I came here alone as you jolly well remember.”

A flicker of something–hurt? but it couldn’t be, not on Potter–flickers across his face but disappears. “Right. Of course.”

“I mean it’s not like you were planning on spending your trip with me either!”

James shakes his head. “Nope. With Sirius.”

That confuses her a moment. “What? Where is your other half?”

He tilts his head to the side eyeing her curiously. “He changed plans a while ago. Wanted to spend the holiday with his new girlfriend.”

Lily’s brow furrows. “Sirius doesn’t have a girlfriend. Does he? Who’s his girlfriend?”

Before James has a chance to respond, her phone pings again.

_srsly lily, where r u???_

To his credit, Potter doesn’t so much as blink when she flings the phone across the room and onto her suitcase with a muffled shriek. 

“I get the feeling you’re just now realising everyone hates Snape.”

She rounds on him, a fraying cord inside her snapping. “ _I_ am angry with him because he hurt me and made horrible decisions based on his grossly bigoted beliefs that I’ve recently discovered.  _You_ picked on him when you didn’t know him because you’re an  _arrogant toerag_.”

The phone pings  _again_  and Lily seriously considers lobbing it out the window and into the gaping valley of the Peak District, and at that moment, she wants nothing more than to get the incessant buzzing of Severus Snape out of her space.

“You still up for a walk Potter?”

He’s put his glasses on, and he’s so taken aback by her question that he knocks them off-kilter, and for a maddening few moments she wants nothing more than to reach out and straighten them.

“You’re not going to push me off a hill, are you?”

“I make no promises.”

He grins, as lopsided as his glasses. “I like a challenge.”

***

“You can’t  _see_ the air!”

“Yes, you can! The leaves are rustling–”

“Because of the  _wind._  And you can’t see that either, you can see the  _leaves_!”

“It’s  _implicit_.”

“The game’s called I _Spy_ , James, not I  _Imply_.”

“You’re a literature student, implication is your bread-and-butter!”

“That’s  _interpretation_. Or  _inference_.”

“Semantics.”

They haven’t made it through a single round of the game without bickering yet, and they’re playing the game because it turns out neither one of them was really cut out for tranquil country walks. 

“Aren’t you glad you have me?” James asks, beaming, “you’d have had to talk to the trees otherwise.”

“They’d provide more stimulating conversation,” she quipped, “I bet trees have done some things worth hearing about.”

James, apparently taking this as a signal, gives a whoop and slings himself upwards to hang off the lowest branch of an overhead tree. 

A surprised laugh escapes her. “What on earth are you doing Tarzan?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never climbed a tree before!”

She folds her arms. “I’ll have you know I have climbed  _many_ trees. What you’re doing James is not  _climbing_. It’s  _dangling_.”

“Dangling?”

“Yes. Climbing is about defying gravity, dangling is about flirting with it.”

James' eyebrows disappear behind his hair. “Are you calling me a flirt?”

Lily rolls her eyes and hoists herself onto the branch next to him, then stretches up and clambers onto the next branch. “I’m calling you a terrible climber.”

He laughs, a surprised delighted sound. “Oh yeah?”

James falls off the tree about halfway up and Lily is wearing half its leaves in her hair, jeering in victory at the highest branch by the time he finally clambers up. 

“Alright,” he puffs, winded, “I admit you _may_ be a somewhat  _faster_ climber–”

“I’m glorious, James, admit it.”

He grins. “Gladly. Glorious. Resplendent. Luminous.”

She shoves at him, suddenly embarrassed, and then almost has a heart attack when he swings backward so he’s dangling upside down with his legs wrapped around the branch and his head pointing downwards.

“Why the acrobatics?” she demands.

He tilts his head just enough to look at her. “We used to see who could hang off for longest, or who could swing off and land the farthest.”

Lily slips down to a lower branch so she doesn’t have to crane as far to look at him. “By ‘we’ you mean you and your pack of marauders yes?”

He chuckles. “Of course.” He snorts nostalgically. “You know Lupin used to be the best at it?”

“Remus? Really?”

“He’s more flexible than you could believe. He ought to run away and join the circus if you ask me. Still, he used to try to talk us out of it all the time. I think he got sick of hauling us home with broken limbs and concussions.”

Lily giggled in spite of herself. “I imagine you hooligans got quite a few of those.”

James pulls a ridiculous maneuver which involves flipping almost upright and tugging upwards so that he’s straddling the branch next to her. “You could say that. One time Peter fell off and I tried to grab him.”

“Let me guess–you went down with him?”

He ducks his head, smiling. “Like the Titanic. And the branch flung back so hard it sent Sirius flying to.” He glances up to look at her and he’s actually blushing. “Lupin had to pile the three of us onto a sled and drag us home.”

Lily has to laugh at that, toss her head back and laugh loud enough that the sound bounces around the forest. “Good lord.”

James looks at her carefully. “You have a nice laugh,” he says, and she quiets, stares at him, waiting for the next joke, the crass pickup line. “So how did you learn to climb?” is what he says. 

She plays with the ends of her hair. “Tuney and I used to fight like nobody’s business. The only way I could get any peace around the house was to scale a tree. Tuney never liked getting her hands dirty so she never bothered following me up there.”

And then there had been all those afternoons with Severus, their legs hanging off the boughs and their backs pressed against the bark, talking and whiling away the hours in the shade. But she doesn’t mention those because Severus isn’t Severus anymore and James…this is still James Potter. She jumps down abruptly. “We should head back.”

“Um. Sure.”

She sees her glancing at her with a concerned expression, but she ignores it. She stuffs her hands back in her pockets as she starts marching briskly down the path. “Keep up Potter,” she calls when she doesn’t hear him following her. 

James opens his mouth, then thinks the better of it and keeps going.

***

The tea is hot and smells of cinnamon, and Lily might have been able to enjoy it had it not been for the fact that she’s distracted by the fact that Aunt Ernesta’s front room looks like Christmas threw up in it. There is a complete Nativity scene of porcelain figures set up in the fireplace, as well as a miniature one on the windowsill and another in the middle of the dining table. A wicker reindeer roughly the size of a St Bernard stands in one corner of the room, a tree laden with six trees worth of ornaments in the other, and white-and-silver streamers hang from the walls. 

“This is beautiful,” James says mildly, and Ernesta is effusive as she ushers them to sit on the little loveseat. 

“I don’t do Christmas by halves dear, not when there are guests. I know I was late about decorating this year, but I had to do it! It’s your first Christmas together after all!”

Lily smiles indulgently and takes a sip of tea to avoid having to say anything. 

“So I’ve already told you about my first Christmas with Rupert,” Ernesta says, reaching across the low coffee table to pat Lily’s hand, “now you two must tell me a little about yourselves. How did you meet?”

She feels James freeze beside her briefly. Impromptu as their charade was, they never actually came up with a backstory for their supposed relationship. 

“We went to school together,” James says, and Lily supposes being truthful wherever possible is smart.

“Ah,” Ernesta leans back, beaming knowingly, “childhood sweethearts.”

“Hardly,” Lily can’t stop herself. “I couldn’t stand him–” James coughs slightly–“at first.”

“I was a bit of an idiot,” he concedes, “I peacocked and pranced a lot, and impressed just about everyone except her.”

“He tried to ask me out and I told him he’d have better luck with one of the pigeons that hung around our school,” she reminisces, a little amused.

“I was pretty much gone from that point on,” and Lily has to look at him because he sounds warm and fond, but completely sincere, “she didn’t buy into any of my sh-my nonsense. Called me out on all my stupidity. And she’s always sought the best in people,” he goes on, and Lily gets the strange feeling he’s forgotten Ernesta’s even there, “all the people I’d look at as plain or boring she’d look at as…as people. And yeah, I guess that’s what made me love her.”

Lily has to take another swig of tea quickly, though it doesn’t really help with the fact that her cheeks feel hot. She looks at James but his eyes are fixed determinedly on the porcelain Wise Men in the fireplace.

Ernesta, meanwhile, is in raptures. “And you dear,’ she turns to Lily, “when did you change your mind about the young man?”

Lily’s hand stills halfway between lowering the cup back to the saucer. 

James shifts a little in his chair, grinning, and she realises the bastard’s enjoying this.

“It was a more…recent development. For me,” she says. “We um–reconnected? After we both went to different universities. I think once I realised he was more mature than he had been, and that underneath all the preening and prancing he really cares about people, I would say that was when I fell for him.”

She expects James to say something annoying but he doesn’t.

“Well,” she says standing up and draining the last of the tea, “this was, as usual, lovely, but I think I ought to go to bed now.”

James follows quickly. “You’re right. Come on sugarplum,” he says, taking her arm, and she digs her nails into his hand as subtly as she can. They’re halfway out the doorway when Ernesta leaps to her feet clapping with glee.

“Oh would you look at that!” she cries.

Somehow, Lily knows what she’s going to find before she cranes her head slowly upwards to see the cluster of mistletoe suspended above them. She looks at James sharply and his expression is as helpless as hers. 

“Don’t be shy, it’s all in the spirit!” Ernesta says.

It’s obvious what has to happen. It would be awkward enough for two random people to refuse to adhere to tradition, and Lily and James are  _supposed_ to be a couple. Her eyes meet James’s again, and this time, they both lean in, slow and tentative. His lips are on hers then, warm and gentle, just a quick press of the mouth, and then he’s gone. Lily can still feel the ghost of his warmth against hers. 

“Good night,” she splutters to Ernesta and then hurries down the corridor.

James doesn’t speak the rest of the evening, which confuses her. It’s  _James Potter_ , there should be some ribbing or teasing or–something. But no, he barely meets her eyes, and when they crawl into bed, he angles himself away so she can’t see his face.

***

“Potter. Potter. Potter. James! James, get up!”

“Mmph!” James finally stirs under Lily’s poking and rubs his eyes. “Whassamatter?” he asks, garbled, “you alright?”

In lieu of a reply, she points out the window, gleeful and waits for him to take in the gleaming blinding whiteness of the snow that blankets the hilly vista.

It seems to hit him at once, and he shivers, pulling the cover up to his chin. “Did you wake me up to look at snow, Evans?”

She rolls her eyes as she starts pulling on a coat and hat. “No, Potter, I woke you up to  _play_ in the snow.”

“You could play by yourself you know,” he says.

She doesn’t reply for a moment. “I’ve played by myself in the snow a lot. I reckon it’s more fun with others.”

He groans. “Are you going to repeatedly use your depressing lonely childhood to coerce me into doing things?”

She tuts at him. “I didn’t have a  _depressing lonely_ childhood, I had a terrible sister who hated getting her hair wet and refused to play with me, not to mention a best friend who ended up half-dead of pneumonia every time he got caught in a strong gust of  _wind_.” She freezes for a moment when she realises she’s crossed the strings she refuses to cross–complaining about Severus and talking to Potter–but nothing happens. James simply hauls himself out of the bed and half stumbles to the suitcases. 

“What?” he says when he sees her watching him. “It’s enough of a sob story to guilt trip me into playing in snow at an ungodly hour of the morning!”

“It’s seven-thirty.”

“It’s the holidays!”

Their bickering takes them all the way outside where it, of course, culminates in Lily lobbing a snowball at his face. She grins as he blinks behind his glasses, which have been knocked askew and are quickly fogging up.

“Don’t start what you can’t finish,” he warns darkly, before scooping up his own handful of snow and hurling it at her. Lily shrieks and tries to dodge it before it lands in her hair, rivulets of melting snow running down the red tresses.

“Oh, you’re for it, Potter.”

They are both, as it turns out, unabashedly competitive, and waste no time in turning the snowball fight into an all out war.

James abandons the balls completely and ends up more or less tossing fistfuls of snow as far as he can, whilst Lily prefers packing her snow tightly and to the size of melons before getting as close as she can to him and crushing the whole thing into his face. Eventually, the snowball fight devolves into some sort of wrestling where James keeps trying to pick Lily up and dump her in a pile of snow and Lily keeps trying to shove the stuff down the back of his shirt. They end up collapsed in a heap on the floor, and Lily laughs till she can’t breathe and her sides hurt.

“I can’t believe,” he says, gasping with laughter as he lies back in the snow, “that you’ve spent years– _years_ –calling me the marauder when you’re a weapon of mass destruction unto yourself.”

“Actually,” she says, “you lot called  _yourselves_ Marauders as you well know. And it’s not my fault I’m better at snowball fights than you.”

James snorts and then shimmies away from her slightly. He tilts his head to grin at her. “Snow angels?”

“Of course.”

They spend a good ten minutes waving their arms and legs about until their snow angels are so deep they have to scrabble to stand up again. 

“I think that’s the closest you’ve ever come to angelic, James,” she declares as they examine their handiwork.

“I’ll have you know I’m positively saintlike,” he says, and Lily snorts. “Snow puts you in a good mood,” he notes.

“Could you tell?” she laughs.

He flushes a little. “Nah, I just meant…you don’t hate me when it snows.”

Lily blinks. The polite response would be “I never hate you,” but given that she’s spent years professing the exact opposite, that would seem a little insincere. She stares at him and realises that no, the face of her longtime nemesis does not, at this moment, annoy her. If anything, she feels a pang of affection for him, what with his hair mussed and damp and his glasses all frosted. 

“You’re not obnoxious when it snows,” she decides and brushes another bit of snow on his nose.

***

It’s evening when the snow starts to fall in the sky, and at first, it’s pretty. James sticks his tongue out to try to catch the falling flakes, and Lily laughs as they tangle in his hair, the little white dots spangled across his black curls like stars against the sky. They’re in her hair too, the endless stream of red now peppered with white, and they start singing The Sound of Music when she points out the snow gathers on her nose and eyelashes. 

Of course, when the snow starts falling torrentially, it stops being fun and starts being cold and wet.  
“We..sh-sh-should g-g-g-go b-b-back.” Lily’s chattering so hard it’s nearly impossible to speak.

“Mmhmm.” James nods and crinkles his nose, which is red with cold.

The walk back is long and stiff, their limbs barely moving, all frigid and achy. It’s a relief to burst into the warmth of the room at last, and there’s some commotion as they try divesting themselves of boots and scarves and hats without dripping water everywhere. 

“You can shower first,” she tells him, “I’ll have to wash my hair and everything.”

Thankfully, he finishes quickly. “I’m going down to see if I can’t beg Aunt Ernesta for some toast,” he says.

The hot water of the shower is an instant relief, and Lily feels the soreness and coldness ebb out of her with the steam. She bundles herself up in a towel when she’s done and reaches for her nightshirt, and swears when she promptly drops it into a puddle of water on the floor. She picks it up gingerly between two fingers, scowling when she sees it’s soaked through. 

The warmth of the shower is quickly beginning to wear away as her eyes dart hurriedly around the bedroom looking desperately for something to wear. She grabs the first t-shirt she spots and tugs it over her head gratefully, and is just starting to towel dry her hair when James walks in.

Or, more precisely, he opens the door and walks promptly into the doorframe before standing there for a moment, rubbing his head and looking slightly dazed. Lily feels the blush creeping up her neck, because the image of James under the door frame brings to mind, unbidden, the memory of their kiss under the mistletoe. The blush intensifies when she glances down and realises what he’s staring at–the shirt she pulled on is his Puddlemere United one, and it’s the only thing she’s wearing now. She is suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that the word POTTER is spelled out in red block letters across the back, and she swallows. “Um. Sorry. I dropped my shirt in water and I didn’t have anything else on hand so–”

“No, no, it’s fine,” James shakes himself a little. “It’s fine.”

They stare at each other for a moment before Lily clears her throat. “Well. Good night James.”

“Good night Lily.”

They crawl into bed. Lily tries to sleep, but she can’t get  _warm_. Her legs are speckled with goosebumps, and she shivers a little. She inches, just slightly, towards James, towards the heat emanating off his body. What? Body heat is important! It’s slightly better but still not enough, so again she inches slightly closer, as close as she can without actually intruding on his side of the bed.

Lily had thought James was already asleep, but apparently not, because, much to her mortification, he turns around to look at her, a little sleepy but awake nonetheless. He’s kind of adorable like this, but she doesn’t think about that. 

“C’mere Evans,” he mumbles, and she freezes for a moment when he drapes an arm around her and nudges her gently so her back is facing him. But he’s warm and she’s tired and he’s soft, and she can tell what he’s going for so she lets him tug her back so she’s pressed against him and his arm around her waist.

Look, it’s for warmth okay? The fact that it’s comfortable is an unexpected perk that means nothing.

She falls asleep in minutes.

***

“I never asked,” Lily says “when are you supposed to leave?”

James swallows his mouthful of toast. “Tomorrow morning. What about you?”

“Same.” 

He nods slowly. “I suppose that works out quite well,” his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, “be awful suspicious for Ernesta is we took off at separate times.”

“Scandalous.”

“Sacrilegious.”

“So,” Lily says, grinning at him, “what are we going to do for the last day?” There seems no point in pretending that this is a separate holiday anymore, and, for reasons she refuses to examine, Lily finds she doesn’t really want to.

James glances out the window. The snow has stopped falling, but it hasn’t started melting yet. “Is it really pathetic. if I say I just want to…” he ducks his head, “I don’t know, hang out?”

Lily hides her smile in her cup of tea. “Maybe. But that’s okay, I can deal with pathetic.”

They end up building a blanket fort in the room like real adults. 

“Sirius and I used to make these all the time when he stayed with us over holidays,” James says. 

“Is that where you got your expertise from?” Lily asks, nudging the walls of the fort with her elbow. “This is structurally pretty superb.”

He grins. “Practice makes perfect.”

“So,” she says, “what do we  _do_ now?”

James pretends to think hard. “Traditionally,” he says, “I believe we commence with Truth or Dare.”

She snorts. “What are we, twelve?”

“What we  _are_ is sitting in a blanket fort, Lily.” He grins and it’s a bright, happy grin, without any edge of smugness or arrogance, and Lily finds she  _adores_  it. 

“Fine. Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.” 

“Take your shirt off and lean out the window for a full minute.”

He raises an eyebrow. “If you wanted my shirt off Evans you only had to ask.”

Lily refuses to blush and just waits. James shrugs and tugs his shirt off, and fine, the view is admittedly far from unpleasant. He saunters over to the window, opens it, and leans out.

“ _Shit_!” he hisses, “It’s  _freezing_!”

Lily cackles. “Time starts now!”

James is almost blue in the face when he crawls back into the fort.

“That was cruel,” he complains.

Lily grins. “Your turn.”

“Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.”

The game goes on for a while before it starts to get intense.

“Truth,” Lily says.

“Why are you…why don’t you act like you hate me anymore?”

The question takes her by surprise. “I guess I don’t,” she says, “hate you. Anymore.”

The look on his face does something to her chest and she has to look away a moment. 

“Truth or Dare?” she asks.

“Truth.”

“Why were you such a dick to Sev back in the day?”

He eyes her warily, and she feels a little bad. If there’s one line of conversation that could turn ugly, this is it. “Because I  _was_  a dick,” he answers simply, shrugging. “I was a spoilt brat who’d never had anyone say no to him so I did what I wanted. That’s why I started being a dick to him.”

The honesty is unexpected and she’s quiet for a moment. “Oh.”

His expression darkens. “I’d feel worse about it though if he wasn’t–” he cuts himself off abruptly but Lily finishes for him.

“If he wasn’t such a malevolent shitweasel?”

He stares at her before cracking a wry grin. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Everyone would always ask you know,” she says, sighing, “why I was friends with him. I fought with everyone on it. Mary, Marlene, my parents…everyone.”

He’s quiet, lets her talk. 

“I spent  _years_ telling everyone he was just misunderstood, putting myself on the line for him, and it turns out I was an idiot.” She hates that her voice is so small.

“You’re not and idiot,” James says, voice low, “don’t you ever think that. An unwavering desire to believe the best in people doesn’t make you an idiot. It makes you…it makes you  _you._ ”

She stares at him. “Thanks.”

He shrugs. “Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“Why’d you stop hating me?” 

His tone is light, teasing, but Lily detects a desperation behind the words. She considers befor answering. “I’ve never…this was…you were  _real_ ,” she says finally. “Not just prancing around for a show. I don’t know if it’s because you’re by yourself here or what but…you’re just  _you_ here.”

He swallows.

“Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.” There seems to be an unspoken agreement that this is the game now, an unfettered excuse to learn each other in ways they haven’t before. 

“What do you  _do_?” she asks.

The question seems to surprise him. “Huh?”

“Like…your job. What do you  _do_? I have no idea what it is you actually do.”

He blinks. “Oh. Um. I…you know Broomsticks?”

She frowns. “Yeah.”

“I kind of own it.”

“Kind of?”

“I am the owner and manager,” he admits and looks embarrassed. 

“Wait, what? So that’s why you’re always lurking there?”

He grins sheepishly. “You could say that.”

“And…Remus and Sirius and Peter…they work for you?”

His expression sobers. “Well, yeah. Remus needed money. To pay for his postgrad stuff, you know? And he’s too stubborn to just take a loan so…”

“So you built a cafe? So you could pay your friend? Is that what I’m hearing?”

He blushes. “I mean it’s not like a massive amount I pay him or anything, and he works hard so it’s not freebies or…” he tails off when he sees Lily’s still staring at him.

She can’t help it them, it seems almost inevitable. She surges forward and kisses him, properly this time. He makes a surprised noise against her mouth, but recovers almost instantly, carding his hand through her hair and pulling her into his lap. Her arms wind around his neck and she is, in that moment, completely and breathlessly  _happy_ just surrounded by the scent and the feel and the everything of James Potter.

When they pull away at last, it’s because she’s smiling too hard for him to kiss her properly.

“Hi,” she says, biting on her lip.

“Hi.” He pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Did you…was that…are you…”

She grins and bumps her nose against his. “In case you hadn’t figured it out, I  _like_  you.”

“You spent years hating me!”

“You spent years being a prick.”

“But…it’s been three days!”

“You were  _good_ for three days.”

He smiles, a smile that spreads slowly across his whole face. “That’s all it took, huh? Three days?”

It’s Lily’s turn to blush. 

James just tugs her in again and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Evans?”

“Hmm?”

“It took me three  _seconds_.”

***

“Hello?”

“Red?”

Lily stares at the phone in bewilderment and glances up at James, who’s taking his turn behind the wheel on their drive back–he’d come by train so it just made sense for him to join her in the car. Also, it means they can snog at every red light, which is, of course, a plus. “Is that Sirius?” she asks.

James nods, lip quirking as though he’s fighting back a smile.

“Sirius,” she says, “why are you answering Mary’s phone?”

“Um…” There’s some shuffling sounds on the other end of the phone and a murmur of voices. All at once, it clicks.

“Mary MacDonald,” Lily yells, because she  _knows_ Mary’s there, “is  _Sirius Black_ your secret boyfriend?”

“Er…yes.” Mary’s voice comes through the phone.

“Why on Earth didn’t you  _tell me_?” Lily splutters.

“I didn’t want you freaking out about the fact that I was dating Potter’s best friend!” she cried, “I didn’t want to tell you till it was serious and you’d have to start seeing James around more…”

Lily grins sidelong at James. “I see. And is it serious?”

Mary’s voice is small, but unmistakably happy when she says. “I–I think so…”

“Well then,” Lily says, “I suppose I’ll have to be prepared to be seeing a lot more of James then.”

James grins right back at her, and Lily reckons that they can live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> I treasure comments and kudos more than Sirius Black treasures quality haircare products.


End file.
